The air quality in our city has been rather poor lately: 
According to the local website, the higher-than-normal pollution is due to the combination of very dry air and increased construction activity .
Not only are there many large apartment complexes rising up all over town, it is interesting to see the recent flurry of construction activity in the village across the street. Click the photo below and look in the circles to see a few projects:
Many people are rapidly adding new levels their old buildings:
Everywhere you look, there are piles of brick and busy workers:
At first glance, it seems strange that so many of these buildings are being expanded, especially since they will soon be destroyed to make way for new, larger apartments:
As I mentioned in an earlier post, when a building is slated for destruction, it is painted with the following Chinese character:
There is an obvious correlation between the location of expansion projects and buildings ready for destruction:
While it doesn’t represent a very effective use of labor and materials, this may be the closest thing to real estate arbitrage in China. Anticipating imminent condemnation of their buildings, the owners expand them, knowing that they will receive a much higher level of compensation for the larger building.
If you build it … they will pay you to tear it down. Or at least, that’s what many people are hoping.
This is so scary. I wonder how many buildings are just added on to, without ever following “code.” I am so nervous they are just going to start collapsing everywhere!
I wonder what their profit margin is, the work & material it takes to expand and the higher compensation. I guess they think it’s worth it, or they wouldn’t do it.
Interesting….appreciate the pics, too. I often think your area looks like L.A. with the smoggy skies. Take care over there.
It doesn’t look like the builders are cutting any corners, using a lot of rebar and double layers of brick for all walls, finished with mortar inside and out. They even mimic the same window structures of the original structure, probably to make the addition look older.
Not sure about the margins on this process, but a real-estate attorney told me that the profit multiples on newly constructed Chinese apartments can be as high as 80% (vs. 8% in the US) due to government land ownership and easy credit. That has been true in the past, but when the bubble bursts, look out!